Rules for thee, but not for me. 

Every office has a different vibe when it comes to noise. In some offices, everyone is quiet all day long, gets their work done, and only talks when saying hi to their coworkers in the morning and bye to them in the afternoon. That is the kind of office I like, because I can’t really focus when music is blaring, and everyone is talking as loudly as they possibly can. There definitely can be a middle ground where coworkers can talk throughout the day, but not the entire day, and most of the conversation is about work rather than who won the game last night. 

If you’re doing work that actually requires using your brain, it is helpful to have some quiet hours in the office where people aren’t just yapping about whatever they want. The problem is that «quiet hours» have to be enforced, and a lot of the time, it’s the higher-ups who won’t shut up. 

The boss in this story wanted his employees to keep quiet hours, but still wanted to schedule his own meetings during the quiet hours. Why he couldn’t hold off on his meetings, I’ll never know.